The prior entertaining 3-2 win at Swansea was meant to relieve the growing mental pressure and provide a springboard. But after a long run up over an international break, Town produced a painful belly flop to agonising looks.

Stepping back from results there were always positives, no matter how small, to take from the early games. But those positives have gradually dried up. It’s sadly been a tale of regression rather than progression.

There has been no sense of a new-look team gelling. And there has been little evidence of the promised high-press, of wingers drifting inside, midfielders joining the attack and full-backs bombing on.

So much has changed and yet, in many ways, nothing has changed at all.

QPR celebrate after their early goal, with Town defender Janoi Donacien in the foreground. Photo: Steve Waller

Too many square pegs in round holes – most notably a centre-back at right-back. We’ve been here before.

Goodwill and fresh hope was only going to last so long among a fanbase who have now seen just two wins in 20 games at Portman Road and become increasingly disillusioned during a largely uneventful 17-year stint in the Championship .

If I thought this calculated managerial gamble quite clearly was an unmitigated disaster then I’d be honest enough to be calling upon owner Marcus Evans to take his medicine and act before too much damage is done.

Yet I’m still clinging to the fact that Ipswich aren’t getting played off the park. Had a few fine margin matches swung the other way, the picture could be a lot different. I guess all relegated teams end up looking back on such ifs, buts and maybes though.

The bottom line is, Town are bottom and continually coming up short. And we’re nearly a third of the way into the season now.

In my opinion, you can forget talk of relegation being a potentially good thing too. I don’t like the look of those odds.

So I repeat to Paul Hurst and the players – you are rubbish. Now please, go and prove us all wrong.

A 16-year-old suffered life-threatening injuries after being stabbed in the car park of a McDonald’s restaurant in Ipswich during a violent fight in front of shocked members of the public, it has been alleged.

Author and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz visited Woodbridge to give a talk at Seckford Hall about his life and works. We caught up with him to talk about his home in Orford, his love for Suffolk and how he plans to spend eternity in the county.